Jjuly 5, 2002
Democratic pigeons and Mayor Conehead
Democratic pigeons and Mayor Conehead
Democratic pigeons
Isn't it odd that two of the three candidates seeking to replace Steve Pigeon as Democratic chairman were part of the cabal that made Steve Pigeon Chairman?
Jim Keane and Lenny Lenihan were both prominent apparachiks in Dennis Gorski's Erie County ruling class when Gorski anointed Pigeon to be party leader. Another of the Gorski-ites who brought Pigeon to power was Assembly Majority Leader Paul Tokasz.
Word has it that Tony Masiello was set to oppose Pigeon way back when but was promised a primary in '97 if he didn't go along with Gorski's plot. Keane and Lenihan would have been key players in such an intramural revolt. Masiello, as always, demurred and for his acquiescence, he faced Jimmy Griffin and Jimmy Pitts in a primary. When Masiello was on the verge of backing Dave Swarts against Pigeon in the last Chairman contest, it was Tokasz who delivered the message from Albany that if Masiello didn't go with Pigeon, he couldn't expect any emergency state aid.
Now these political giants are all aligned in opposition to the Chairman they created. It doesn't really augur well for a real change any time soon. The prospect of Jim Keane as Chairman is really appalling. He's had more positions than the Kama Sutra! He came to elected office as a Griffin guy in '77, abandoned Griffin to get the Democratic endorsement to run against Dennis Gorski in the primary for County Executive, took successively higher jobs in the Gorski Administration, went on sabbatical after the Gorski defeat, and resurfaced as Hillary Clinton's district rep.
Mayor Conehead
Another guy who would like us to fall victim to political amnesia is Mayor Conehead—Jimmy Griffin.
He's wasting his July collecting petition signatures to force a recall of Masiello. He cites the lack of waterfront development as one of the reasons Masiello should be bounced. Waterfront development? Has all that scotch eroded so many of Gimmee Jimmy's brain cells that he's forgotten that he was mayor for 16 years and he never touched a shovel to the ground in the Inner Harbor?
Then Griffin said it was terrible that Masiello laid off cops. Griffin would like everyone to forget that in 16 years, only one contract with the PBA didn't go to arbitration—the last one. As his gift to Masiello, Griffin and his lackey Mike McKeating negotiated a sweetheart contract with the cops that gave them the equivalent of a 30% pay raise while reducing the number of hours a cop works to fewer than those worked by teachers, who get the entire summer off! The net result of the Griffin parting shot was a reduction of the equivalent of 60 officers and the surrender of management controls that will plague the department and the city for the foreseeable future.
And let's not forget Griffin's seminal act as Mayor—the gift of the full proceeds of the extra one per cent sales tax to Erie County. Griffin gave up the city's claim to a share of the $100 million annually that runs county government because his pal Ed Rutkowski was about to take Erie County into bankruptcy as county exec. So Griffin, who idolizes jocks, told the Notre Dame grid star to take the proceeds of the extra one per cent. In the succeeding years, the county has collected over a billion dollars, remains the only county in the state that doesn't share the one per cent, and still balks at helping the city with its imperious "no handout, no bailout" mantra.
It is illustrative to point out that in four elections for mayor, Griffin surpassed 50% of the total vote only once—in 1981 when his only opposition was Al Coppola who opposed him on the Liberal Party line. Let's hope Griffin is as successful in this effort as he was in his last mayoral campaign and his unforgettable presidential campaign in New Hampshire.
—Spectator